The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the National Literacy Trust are launching a commission to examine the future of school library provision in England. The joint initiative will assess the role of the school library in the 21st century school. The commission will focus on the definition and role of a modern school library; the characteristics of effective school library provision; the agencies and partnerships which can best provide and support this model; and the articulation of a national improvement agenda. The final report will provide an informed and proactive vision for the future of school libraries and their role in supporting learning outcomes. The commission will be chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris, who began her career as a teacher and has held a number of positions in government including Secretary of State for Education & Skills (2001-2002). Baroness Morris will be joined by commissioners including Peter Wanless Chief Executive of the National Lottery Fund, Jean Gross, Director of Every Child a Reader partnership and Catherine Blanshard, Chief Officer of Libraries, Arts and Heritage for Leeds City Council

"DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses. DART-Europe is endorsed by LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche), and it is the European Working Group of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). The DART-Europe partners help to provide researchers with a single European Portal for the discovery of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), and they participate in advocacy to influence future European e-theses developments. DART-Europe offers partners a European networking forum on ETD issues, and may provide the opportunity to submit collaborative funding applications to achieve DART-Europe's vision for ETDs"

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and an arm of the National Institutes of Health, has been named a partner in a multi-centered grant to digitize materials in the history of medicine. As one of five libraries participating in the digital Medical Heritage Project, NLM will receive $360,000 over the next two months to digitize items from its historical medical collections. The initiative is funded by a $1.5 million award to the Open Knowledge Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a universal digital library for democratic access to information, from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Approximately 30,000 volumes of public domain works will be digitized from the collections of some of the world's leading medical libraries: NLM, the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and the New York Public Library. NLM will contribute digital versions of thousands of medical materials, including publications dating back to the 17th century. This project will eventually make resources permanent and freely available through a digital library. Plans are to include more library partners and provide Web access to the collection. The NLM History of Medicine Division collection includes 90 early western manuscripts (before 1600), 139 Arabic and Persian medical manuscripts, an East Asian collection of more than 2,000 printed books, manuscripts and visual materials, over 83,000 prints and photographs, all printed books in the NLM collection printed before 1914, thousands of later pamphlets and dissertations, and all pre-1871 journals

Saturday, January 30, 2010

An exploration of how records created by the crown before 1485 can be used to study medieval armies, campaigns and battles in Britain and France. The talk will focus on the records of key battles such as Bannockburn, Crécy and Agincourt. - UK National Archives

"The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Evaluation of Library Efforts Index, Preserve and Catalog Blogs, Websites, Email Archives and other Cyber Resources presents data on how higher education faculty in the United States and Canada view the usefulness and quality of academic library efforts to further scholarship based on internet sources such as websites, blogs, listervs, social networking sites, online ads and other internet resources. The report presents highly detailed data on how faculty use blogs, websites, social networking sites, email archives, listservs, webcasts and podcasts, ezines, online ads and other cyber resources in scholarship. It also highlights how faculty rate the efforts of academic libraries to index, preserve and catalog these resources. In addition, the report discusses other pertinent trends, such as the degree of use of web archiving software"

"The January 2010 edition of the Ranking Web of repositories has been published. The records have been updated and now the Excel files (xls) are included in the calculation of the number of documents deposited"

Friday, January 29, 2010

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: One to Ten. "Our brainteasers always have ten questions, but this quiz is about the numbers from one to ten. Each question or answer includes one of those numbers - but they are not in numerical order in the questions" Answers here.

1. What number in Downing Street is the residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?2. What is a "one-horse town"?3. A horizontal figure of which number is the symbol for infinity in mathematics?4. A tetrahedron is a solid figure with how many triangular faces?5. The ancient city of Rome was built on or about how many hills?6. A dyad is a social relationship involving how many participants?7. In cricket, how many runs are scored by a hit which makes the ball clear the boundary without touching the ground?8. The Three Kingdoms is a period from 220 to 581 in the history of which country?9. In the song about the twelve days of Christmas, how many drummers were drumming?10. "The Five" was a group of Russian composers who joined together in about 1875 to create a Russian national music. Name three of these composers.

Wellcome Library: Behind the Scenes: Digital Services: "This is the first in a series of posts aimed at revealing the cogs and wheels that make up the Wellcome Library. These are the departments and teams that provide the services our readers are so familiar with. Now, we find ourselves on the first floor of the Wellcome Collection building with Digital Services. This department brings together several roles and resources in the Library centred around the technical delivery of websites, catalogues, digitisation projects, digital imaging services, an open access repository for research outputs, and digital curation"

"One million books from Manchester's Central Library – including valuable volumes dating back to the 15th century - are to be put into temporarily storage with many going deep underground in the Cheshire salt mines. Works from the city's reference library will be stored in the mines, hundreds of feet below ground, for the next three years while the landmark city centre site undergoes a massive refurbishment to save it from ruin. Experts say the mine's caverns – the size of 700 football pitches - provide the perfect environment for preserving the manuscripts, which include the works of eminent academics. A phased shut down of the St Peter's Square library will begin next month, with the site closing its doors in June. The Library Theatre, which will most likely relocate to the historic Theatre Royal, will close the following month with a celebratory show entitled Last Night at the Library"

Library + Information Gazette, the fortnightly magazine for the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is now available online to everyone. Latest issue: 28 January 2010 - 10 February 2010

The 15th Irish Universities Information Services Colloquium will take place at Carton House, Maynooth from March 10-12 2010. "The aim of the colloquium has been to bring together those working in the university communities of library, computing, MIS and audiovisual departments to consider emerging issues and to exchange experience"

A Reference Renaissance 2010: Inventing the Future will be held August 8-10, 2010, in Denver, Colorado. "This exciting event will feature numerous presentations showcasing the latest reference trends and techniques that will give you new ideas and tools to better serve your customers. Also included are vendor exhibits, presentations specifically focused on products and services of interest to reference and information staff and plenty of opportunities for networking and sharing with colleagues"

Gale, part of Cengage Learning, has acquired the assets of Questia Media, Inc. Questia provides a premium subscription-based online information service that gives users access to more than 76,000 books from 300+ publishers and millions of articles from journals, magazines and newspapers

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Washington Post: J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91. Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H. "The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight - and concern"

"Pliny is a tool that works with annotations or notes that you gather as you are reading - arguably the starting point for much personal scholarly research in the humanities. It can be used with both digital (web sites, images and PDF files) and non-digital (books, printed journal articles) materials. The text of the annotation can be anything that you wish to record - indeed, whatever strikes you about the material you are reading is fair game"

The draft programme for LILAC 2010 is now available. LILAC 2010 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) hosted by Library Network Support Services will take place at the Limerick Strand Hotel, 29-31 March 2010

"The Secretary of Agriculture has allocated $100 million in United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Community Facilities funding for public libraries to provide educational opportunities and improve public services in rural communities. The funding will be provided primarily through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009"

AtmosPeer is a research tool designed specifically for researchers, faculty, librarians & students in the atmospheric science community. AtmosPeer provides:

* A central source of news in the atmospheric sciences (from reputable established sites like AMS, UCAR, Royal Meteorological Society, Scientific American, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)* Current lists of conferences, scholars, and funding related to the Atmospheric Sciences, sourced from the ProQuest RefWorks COS Scholar Universe, Funding Opportunities and (Conference) Papers Invited products* Capability to search recent research in the Meteorological & GeoAstrophysical Abstracts (MGA) collection - a product developed in partnership between AMS and ProQuest* Social Networking - find, evaluate and initiate contact with new people. Share documents and receive feedback and collaborate on research

AtmosPeer is a free service from ProQuest in partnership with American Meteorological Society (AMS), the Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI), & the Conference Exchange

Inside Google Books writes: I'm happy to announce a few fresh features for Google Books. We've updated the home page by adding the ability to scroll through categories of books and magazines. We also integrated the My Library feature into the home page to enable you to create and then share collections of books by adding them to "bookshelves." This new version of My Library gives you control over your collections by enabling you to keep some bookshelves private - if, say, you want to organize your own personal reading lists - while sharing others

"Opening in April 2010, Magnificent Maps showcases the British Library's unique collection of large-scale display maps, many of which have never been exhibited before, and demonstrates why maps are about far more than geography. The exhibition will include large-scale, impressive maps from the 1400s to the present day, including the largest book in the world, the Klencke Atlas of 1660. It will suggest the settings in which they might originally have been seen – from the palace to the schoolroom and the home – reveal the themes that unite them, and highlight the sheer artistry that was involved in their production. Magnificent Maps will also explore the reason behind the construction of these visually arresting works of art. Which range from maps used for indoctrination or expressions of local pride to irrefutable statements of power and illustrations of rulers' spheres of influence. This exhibition will be supported by a wide range of events, from talks and discussions to family events"

"The massive earthquake near the capital of Port-au-Prince in Haiti on January 12 and the loss and upheaval of life has touched everyone around the world. Unfortunately, natural disasters do not spare cultural institutions such as libraries and archives, or their staff. Reports of destroyed and damaged libraries and archives are beginning to filter in, and in an effort to help our Haitian colleagues, ALA has created the Haiti Library Relief Fund to collect monetary tax deductible donations. Libraries and other cultural institutions are critical resources for the recovery of people around the world in the aftermath of a humanitarian crisis. This website provides information on how you can donate to help libraries and archives recover, as well as reports on damage to cultural institutions in Haiti, how to volunteer you expertise, and additional efforts of ALA and other organizations"

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival: Off the Edge - 11 to 13 February 2010 - London, UK - "Half a century after C. P. Snow's two cultures, the arts and sciences remain distinct domains. While the social sciences might have built bridges, they each continue to occupy a space of their own. This festival aims to push those boundaries, exploring the edges of social science and asking what can be learnt in the borderlands between social science, natural science and the humanities about mind, self and society"

"Credo Reference has signed an agreement to include National Gallery images and information in the Credo General Reference Collection. Credo has licensed high resolution images of the paintings of the National Gallery, London. Students and library patrons will now be able to find the beautiful images of these national treasures whenever they search their library's online resources. In addition to the images, Credo will include the National Gallery Companion Guide, If the Paintings Could Talk… and the National Gallery Visitor's Guide to complement the images and provide descriptive information about the artists and their works. Credo has also licensed two Pocket Guides to enable researchers to further understand artistic themes: Myths & Legends and Narrative"

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Pebble Learning announces its inaugural conference focusing on its online personal learning system, PebblePad, used by over 100 institutions and 500,000 users - 8-10 June 2010 - Shifnal, UK - "PebblePad is an innovative personal learning system designed to support any learner, learning at any level. Its unique interface hints at the user friendly system which allows users to build and share a broad collection of items related to their studies, personal development, continuing professional development or any event of personal significance"

The first issue of the Yale Library Studies journal, a new annual publication put together by the University's librarians, faculty, related experts and invited authors, was released this month. The journal replaces its biannual predecessor, The Yale University Library Gazette, which was in publication between 1926 and 2008, said Geoffrey Little, editor of the new journal

"ChEMBL is a database of ca. 500,000 bioactive compounds, their quantitative properties and bioactivities (binding constants, pharmacology and ADMET, etc). The data is abstracted and curated from the primary scientific literature and the data made available due to funding by the Wellcome Trust. The database is part of the ChEMBL resources at the EMBL-EBI"

This practical guide, from CILIP, will describe what is meant by 'open access' and explains how users can find open access journals, especially those in the area of librarianship and information science. Several open access journals and depositories are listed

"JISC is putting the spotlight on the education community in a blog competition, with the chance to win a flip camera and inclusion in a JISC publication. As part of the JISC Conference 2010, JISC is asking teachers, learners and researchers to share their experiences of technology around the event theme: 'technology - at the heart of education and research'. The competition will be judged by Michelle Pauli, deputy editor of Guardian.co.uk books section and editor of the conference blog; conference keynote speaker Bill St Arnaud, chief research officer at Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organization; and John Traxler, professor of mobile learning and director of the Learning Lab at the University of Wolverhampton. Entrants should write a blog post or produce a short video explaining how important technology is to their work in education and research"

"The Public Domain Manifesto has been produced within the context of COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the digital public domain. The members of COMMUNIA Working Group 6, starting from an idea expressed during the 1st COMMUNIA Conference, worked for many months during 2009 to prepare a draft text, which was later circulated among COMMUNIA members, until a final version was completed. The views expressed by the Manifesto represent only the views of the signers. You can join the [communia] mailing list to discuss the manifesto with the COMMUNIA network members and with other people and organizations interested in the public domain"

Monday, January 25, 2010

"In commemoration of African American History Month, the Library of Congress on February 3 will launch a new online exhibition about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization which has donated its records to the Library, where they are the most-consulted collection. On February 26, the Library of Congress also will hold a symposium on the NAACP in room LJ119 of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C., from 10 a.m. to noon. The symposium will be free and open to the public"

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #104. "This week's episode brings an analytical essay. What is fueling this renewed drive for paywalls and exclusivity contracts for content? The essay talks about some of the economic pressures that may have been overlooked. Remember, the air staff used to work in print news which means that they have their bylines and photo credits in at least a vertical file out there somewhere. A miscellany of brief items is also presented". Previous Podcasts can be found here

"On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its book awards for the publishing year 2009 at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York. The fiction finalists, announced by 2008 finalist Elizabeth Strout, included this year's Man Booker Award winner, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Holt), as well as Bonnie Jo Campbell's 2009 National Book Award finalist, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press), and Jayne Anne Phillips NBA finalist Lark and Termite (Knopf). The autobiography finalists, announced by 2008 autobiography winner Ariel Sabar, included Lit (Harper) by Mary Karr, author of The Liar's Club, a formative book in the memoir genre, and Kati Marton's Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America (Simon & Schuster), in which the author used her reporter's skills to uncover the story of her parents in Budapest during the Nazi and Communist eras. Biography, announced by 1999 finalist Jean Strouse, included works about writers John Cheever, Clarice Lispector, Flannery O'Connor, Ignazio Silone"

Marshall Breeding has posted the results the third annual survey of data collected on how libraries rate their current integrated library system, the company involved, and the quality of customer support. The survey also aims to gather data regarding attitudes regarding interest levels in open source ILS products. Perceptions 2009: an international survey of library automation gives the general conclusions and presents all the statistical results derived from the survey. As usual, some of the most interesting and valuable information lies in the comments offered by responders

"The NoWAL (North West Academic Libraries) General Programme for February to March 2010 is now available. The NoWAL programme of staff training and development offers extensive opportunities for professional and personal development. The main aim of the programme is to support and develop the abilities required of staff to deliver existing and future services to users"

Dev8D 2010 is a free event for software developers working in education and research. The event will be an opportunity for developers to learn and practice new skills, hear about development happening throughout the country and participate in hands on workshops. The event lasts 4 days but each day will stand on its own, so you don't have to sign up for the whole event - 24-27 February 2010 - London, UK

Sunday, January 24, 2010

"The papers of Henri Tajfel (1919-1982), the Bristol University Professor of Social Psychology and eminent social psychologist, following the completion of the cataloguing process, have become accessible at the Wellcome Library. An extensive obituary for Tajfel appeared in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 1, 87-89 (1982). He also has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and an extensive Wikipedia biography where he is credited as the principal co-developer of Social Identity Theory. This theory, developed by Tajfel and Turner, suggests that people categorize themselves into groups which Tajfel and Turner called 'in-groups', and categorize everyone else into other groups, called 'out-groups'. This categorization helps to promote a sense of identity but this leads to unfavourable comparisons between the in-group and the out-group and the enforcement of boundaries between the groups which can result in conflict in various guises"

"The Tony Kent Strix Award, given by the UK eInformation Group of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, has been awarded to Carol Ann Peters of Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dell'Informazione 'A. Faedo'. Carol was nominated for her work on the Cross Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF), the world's leading forum for evaluating cross language searching systems, which Carol initiated and has run for ten years. This annual evaluation exercise has attracted a multi-disciplinary network of researchers to collaborate on shared tasks, to contribute to the CLEF testing resources, and to meet annually to present and discuss results. In its opening year, CLEF counted 20 participants; thanks to Carol's hard work, CLEF has expanded year on year to become a major international event in information retrieval related research: in 2009 it attracted over 130 registrations from individual researchers and leading research groups from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas"

SAGE has partnered with The Histochemical Society to publish its official journal, the Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry, beginning with volume 59 in 2011. John R. Couchman, Ph.D., the Danish National Research Foundation Professor at the University of Copenhagen, will assume the Editor-in-Chief position of the Journal at the same time

"This UK National Archives talk looks at immigration into Britain from the 16th to the 20th century and the relatively few sources that can be used to trace immigrants entering, and living, in this country. Records discussed can provide vital clues to the overseas origins of denizens or naturalised British citizens, as well as providing insight into their first years in their adopted country"

"The Library One Search is a new discovery tool which allows users to quickly search and access a variety of library items including books and other materials from the catalog, journal and magazine object, and digital objects within local repositories. This is an all-new service which will can be accessed through the library home page as well as the library tool bar, MyASU, Blackboard and more. Library One Search uses the new Summon unified discovery service by Serials Solutions. From a single search box, users can access resources normally only found in the 275 separate subscription databases, catalog records, and the local digital repository. Instead, Library One Search searches most of what the library owns and/or has access to from one box"

"JISC Techdis Toolbar has been created as an open-source, cross-browser toolbar to help students customise the way they view and interact with web pages to help their study skills. The concept behind JISC Techdis Toolbar is simple: One toolbar to provide all of the functionality you would usually get in many different products, and which will run in any desktop web browser"

"Presented by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, the Santa Clara County Library and the San Jose Public Library Foundation, Silicon Valley Reads is designed to promote reading and literacy, broaden the exposure to and appreciation of good literature, and build community. Public events (most free) are scheduled to spark discussion of the themes of the selected books. There are many opportunities to read and discuss the Silicon Valley Reads books at libraries, bookstores, community organizations, and businesses"

Saturday, January 23, 2010

JISC Conference 2010 - This will be the 8th annual conference, bringing JISC's expertise and knowledge on technology in education to over 750 academics, IT experts, library professionals, policy makers, research staff, senior managers, students and teachers from across education within the UK and internationally - 12-13 April 2010 - London, UK

"The National Library's new exhibition, Discover Your National Library, invites visitors to come behind the scenes and explore the Library's rich and varied collections and to meet the staff who care for them. Using the exhibition's innovative technology, visitors can view highlights from the Library's collections and examine individual items in extremely close detail. Among the artefacts currently on view (exhibition items will change three times a year) are rare manuscripts such as the fourteenth-century Book of Magauran; a 1588 deed signed by Sir Walter Raleigh; a lottery ticket from 1795, and a letter from Éamonn Ceannt to his wife Áine O'Brennan, written just a few hours before his execution in 1916. Thousands of other digital items await discovery by visitors on the exhibition's cutting-edge 'Discovery' touch tables"

Mystery Writers of America has announced, on the 201st anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2009. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at the 64th Gala Banquet, April 29, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City:

* The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)* The Odds by Kathleen George (Minotaur Books)* The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)* Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Random House - Ballantine Books)* Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett (HarperCollins)* A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster - Atria Books)

CARL E-Lert # 360, January 22, 2010, is now available from Canadian Association of Research Libraries. Some of this week's items: ARL Supports Mandatory Public Access; AAP Offers Cautions, Warns of Piracy; Public access to federally funded research: SPARC comments; Comments of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Concerning "Public Access Policies for Science and Technology Funding Agencies Across the Federal Government"; Google Books opponents propose public alternative

"Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults – allowing you to check out the numbers for yourself. This is the Guardian's gateway to that information. Search for government data here from the UK (including London), USA, Australia and New Zealand – and look out for new countries and places as we add them"

London Transport Museum: "London's public transport companies have been using moving images to promote services and train staff since the early years of the twentieth century. Although the film collection we inherited from London Transport is perhaps best known for the documentaries made by British Transport Films in the 1950s and 60s, we have chosen a broader range of titles for this initial online selection, covering the period from 1910 to 1970"

"Google Wave is a collaborative, instant messaging service which began in a preview (alpha) edition in 2009. Google Wave may change the very face of virtual reference. This group is for libraries/librarians and others who wish to connect with one another outside of Wave and share ideas, projects and tools about and for Wave" RSS Feed

Friday, January 22, 2010

"The National Archives (UK) has won an e-Government National Award for the online 1911 census service. The National Archives won an award in the category 'Central e-government excellence: Take-up and usage growth', at a ceremony held on 20 January at the Guildhall, London. The 1911 census project involved digitising more than two kilometres of paper census returns containing information collected from 36 million people living in England and Wales in April 1911. It is the most comprehensive census ever to be opened to the public, one of the most ambitious digitisation projects ever undertaken, and was made possible through a partnership between The National Archives and findmypast.com. The online census, which received 24 million searches in the first month after its launch, remains extremely popular with audiences across the world"

"Article-level records for content in the JSTOR Archive are now indexed in WorldCat.org and delivered in WorldCat.org search results. Scholars and researchers will now be able to identify JSTOR resources through WorldCat.org and connect with the full-text content using the authorization provided by their library"

"The 2010 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, from Saturday 20 to Sunday 28 March, offers a wonderful range of talks, discussions, debates, readings, Literary Lunches and Dinners in the exceptional and beautiful surroundings of Christ Church and Corpus Christi College - with many major events staged in The Sheldonian Theatre, The Bodleian Library and other prestigious venues"

The Sydney Taylor Book Award recognizes the best in Jewish children's literature. Medals are awarded annually for outstanding books that authentically portray the Jewish experience. The award was established in 1968. It is named in memory of Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series. The 2010 winners have been announced

"A Bodleian Library electronic resource has been awarded the Digital Prize for 2010 by the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS). Electronic Enlightenment offers the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period. Linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the early 19th century, EE reconstructs the web of correspondence that made the long 18th century the birthplace of the modern world. With over 55,000 letters between more than 6,500 correspondents (as of December 2009), EE offers unrivalled access to the conversation between the greatest thinkers and writers of the 18th century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers"

A visionary project is being funded as part of a joint initiative to explore future scenarios for academic libraries and information services, particularly in the context of a rapidly-changing environment. It will help higher education institutions and organisations look at the challenges faced from a fresh focus and formulate strategies to ensure the sector continues to be a leading global force. The project partners are the British Library, JISC, Research Information Network (RIN), Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL). Academic libraries of the future is an 18-month project being undertaken by Curtis+Cartwright Consulting Ltd. Libraries are fundamental to learning, teaching and research. But the world is changing. How will UK higher education be funded and operated in the long term future? What will be the information needs of users? Factors such as the digital revolution, the knowledge economy, students and researchers as 'consumers' and the global economic crisis, are all transforming the landscape. Developing and implementing business strategies over a three- to five-year timescale is now commonplace in higher education. Looking beyond this horizon (over ten to 20 years, or more) is less common, and more challenging - but to improve decision-making and plan effectively for the future, this longer-term time scale must be considered. A series of workshops will be held during 2010-2011 with the aim of imagining and describing possible futures for libraries. They will bring together a wide range of influential stakeholders, including institutional senior managers, librarians, funders, students, researchers, suppliers, technologists, legal specialists and others. The first two workshops are taking place in February and March 2010 to scope out the broad global environment and consider possible futures for higher education and the information needs of users within these scenarios. These will be followed by smaller focused workshops during the summer of 2010 to gain a more in-depth analysis.

The ASIST Annual Meeting is the main venue for disseminating research centred on advances in the information sciences and related applications of information technology. This year's conference is stepping away from tradition and re-inventing our premier conference in the guise of an innovative "ASIST 2.0." - October 22-27, 2010 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

* What are librarians looking for from resource providers and publishers in this brave new world?* How are librarians transitioning to digital collections?

Increasingly, libraries are developing robust digital publishing programs, investing in institutional repositories, weeding print, and looking to build e-book collections. Couple this with a decade of open access initiatives, shrinking embargo periods on scientific literature, Google Books, and the rise of virtual services for patrons who never set foot in a physical library, and it looks like the future is now" - Society for Scholarly Publishing

Webinar: What It Takes To Make It Last: E-Resources Preservation - February 10, 2010 - "Thirty years into the Digital Revolution, we are still grappling with how best to preserve electronic content. Whether born digitally or the electronic version of analog content, electronic resources are relied upon more and more, and their long-term usability must be ensured. This webinar will provide attendees with an overview of current digital preservation standards as well as a closer look at the PREMIS standard for preservation metadata. Attendees will also hear about the work being undertaken by HathiTrust to build and preserve a comprehensive and cooperative digital library"

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Winter. "Britain and parts of the United States have been suffering a severe winter. Try to answer these questions, each of which is about winter or has an answer that includes the word "winter". " Answers here.

1. What is the title of Shakespeare's play about Leontes, who is married to Hermione and becomes consumed by an insane jealousy?2. In the Northern Hemisphere, is the winter solstice in November, December or January?3. Name one of the two US brothers surnamed "Winter": one a rock musician born in 1946; the other a rhythm and blues guitarist born in 1944.4. Were the first separate, self-contained Winter Olympic Games held in 1904, 1914 or 1924?5. Which poet wrote the line "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind"? Was it Keats, Shelley or Wordsworth?6. Name one of the two countries which fought the "Winter War" during the 1939-40 winter.7. Is "Winter' the first or last of the four violin concertos by Vivaldi called "The Four Seasons"?8. What was the first name of the man whose first marriage was to Rebecca de Winter, the eponymous character in Daphne Du Maurier's 1938 novel "Rebecca"?9. In which Russian city was the Winter Palace, the former Russian imperial residence which was stormed by the Bolsheviks in November 1917?10. Which composer wrote a song cycle called "Winter Words" based on poems by Thomas Hardy?

International Conference on Information Society (i-Society 2010) - June 28-30 2010 - London, UK. "The mission of i-Society 2010 conference is to provide opportunities for collaboration of professionals and researchers to share existing and generate new knowledge in the field of information society. The conference encapsulates the concept of interdisciplinary science that studies the societal and technological dimensions of knowledge evolution in digital society. The i-Society bridges the gap between academia and industry with regards to research collaboration and awareness of current development in secure information management in the digital society"

"Jorum provides access to free learning and teaching resources, created and contributed by teaching staff from UK Further and Higher Education Institutions. Jorum offers two collections - JorumOpen and JorumUK - containing a wide variety of resources, including open educational resources that are freely available to all"

The American Indian Library Association (AILA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, has selected "A Coyote Solstice Tale" written by Thomas King and illustrated by Gary Clement; "Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy from Oklahoma" by Genevieve Simermeyer, and "Between the Deep Blue Sea by Me: A Novel" by Lurline Wailana McGregor as recipients of the third American Indian Youth Literature Awards

"Maureen Sullivan, owner of Maureen Sullivan Associates and Professor of Practice in the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science Ph.D. Program in Managerial Leadership, is the 2010 Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Academic/Research Librarian of the Year. The award, sponsored by YBP Library Services, recognizes an outstanding member of the library profession who has made a significant national or international contribution to academic/research librarianship and library development. Sullivan will receive a $5,000 award at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 26, at the joint ACRL/LLAMA Awards Presentation at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C."

* The Bucks County Community College Library, Newtown, Pa.* The A.C. Buehler Library at Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Ill.* The Indiana University Bloomington Libraries.

Sponsored by ACRL and Blackwell's Book Services, the award recognizes the staff of a college, university and community college library for programs that deliver exemplary services and resources to further the educational mission of the institution

"Credo Reference recently signed an agreement to integrate a key glossary of computing from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT into the Credo General Reference collection. The BCS Glossary of Computing and ICT is an international bestselling guide to computer terms. Now in its 12th edition, and containing over 3,000 terms arranged by theme and defined in context, the Glossary is fully indexed and cross-referenced throughout"

"NextSpace is OCLC's magazine for our members and information managers. NextSpace analyzes industry trends and technology developments as well as feature news about OCLC. Our goal is to help you stay informed and make key decisions"

On January 17, 2010, the 2010 ACRL Presidential Candidates Forum was held at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston. The 2010 candidates for ACRL Vice-President/ President-Elect are Frank D'Andraia (Service Professor in the Department Information Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York) and Joyce Ogburn (University Librarian and Director of the University of Utah Marriott Library). Click the play button below to listen to the podcast:

Digital Futures of Special Collections - A workshop day aimed at curators and collection managers looking at the practical and strategic issues of heritage collections and digitisation. An opportunity to share good practice, problems and solutions and to build partnerships within the research library community. The focus will be on the strategic and practical but not technical - 16 March 2010 - University of Exeter, UK

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has announced its list of Outstanding Reference Sources for 2010. The list is compiled by a committee of RUSA members who are readers' advisory and reference experts. They review publications and online reference resources released in the previous calendar year and present their selections at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Reception at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The 2010 selections for the Outstanding Reference Sources List are:

"UNISON, Britain and Europe's biggest public sector union, is to hold an inquiry into the public library service on 11 February 2010 at the British Library, London. Libraries continue to be at the heart of communities and as part of UNISON's Million Voices campaign, library staff and library users will be invited to give evidence on various topics, including the potential threats to the service and, most importantly, the main issues affecting staff. A small panel of experts will hear the evidence and a government minister will be invited. Attendance on the day will be free"

"The CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award is established as one of the leading accolades in the library and information world. The Award highlights and rewards good practice in any innovative library and information projects which:

We welcome entries from any sector of the library and information world. They could be reading projects, learning projects, or projects that promote information. They must be shown to have affected people's lives for the better, whoever those people might be. All entries must be received by Monday 15 February 2010"

The annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium (NMC). Each year, the report identifies and describes six areas of emerging technology likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression in higher education within three adoption horizons: a year or less, two to three years, and four to five years

" The Poetry Book Society has announced that Philip Gross has won the 2009 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry with The Water Table, published by Bloodaxe. The judges of this year's Prize, Chair Simon Armitage, and fellow-poets Penelope Shuttle and Colette Bryce, reached their decision after months of deliberation and debate. The winner was chosen from a field of ten highly-regarded poets"

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Credo Reference has signed an agreement with Hodder Education to incorporate three major subject references into the Credo collection. These will be the first Hodder Education titles licensed to Credo. Hodder Education publishes for the educational market at all levels. It is the second largest publisher for secondary and further education in the UK and is also a major publisher of higher education and health sciences textbooks and reference works. The three titles that will be added to Credo Reference's collection of over 440 titles are:

* The Essentials of Global Politics * The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics * Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Psychology

Califa, in partnership with InfoPeople, is presenting The Edgy Librarian, an online web conference to be held on January 20, 2010, featuring many of the new technologies being used in libraries, and show-and-tell sessions from libraries using those new services

"Governance and Recordkeeping Around The World is a free newsletter published on a regular basis by Library Archives Canada that explores and highlights issues pertaining to government and recordkeeping practices in the public and private sector. This collaborative tool was designed to help readers stay up-to-date with the latest news, events, trends, products and publications in the field of public administration and recordkeeping" - December 2009 issue now available

The American Library Association has announced the top books, audiobooks and video for children and young adults - including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards - at its Midwinter Meeting in Boston

"Although much of the publishing industry is working hard to develop and implement digital strategies, there is little available research evaluating book consumers' actual interests in and preferences for digital content, or the factors that influence their reading habits and purchasing decisions. To fill this void, BISG's newest research study, Consumer Attitudes toward E-Book Reading, provides comprehensive on-going survey data from hundreds of actual e-book readers" - Book Industry Study Group

"The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) is pleased to announce the conclusion of three-year license renewals with 14 scholarly publishers, valued at approximately $140 million (CAD). These agreements follow an extended round of negotiations with publishers, aimed at providing CRKN's 73 university members with world-class resources that foster innovative research and allow Canadian researchers to remain internationally competitive"

The Pharos mission is to advance audiovisual search from a point-solution search engine paradigm to an integrated search platform paradigm. This platform will be built on an innovative, open, and distributed architecture that enables consumers, businesses and organisations to unlock the values found in audiovisual content

"Authors like Val McDermid and Ian Rankin are well-known amongst the readers of crime fiction but, beneath the top rank of bestsellers are a host of writers, some new and some who have built loyal followings over the years but who have never quite broken through. It is to give a boost to these authors that the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library Award exists. Again sponsored by the publishers, Random House, the Dagger is awarded to a writer nominated by library users and chosen by a panel of librarians, all of whom work with the public. This year's panel is chaired by Mark Benjamin, formerly Team Librarian at Hexham Library, and includes librarians from throughout the UK. 2009 saw a record 70 authors nominated, perhaps spurred on by the chance for groups nominating the winning author to be entered in a draw for £300 to be spent on books. As before, all groups whose nominated authors are shortlisted are entered into a draw for 2 tickets to the prestigious Dagger Awards ceremony, to be held this year at the Harrogate Festival. The closing date for entries is 9th April 2010"

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association, has selected 10 adult books with special appeal to teen readers to receive the 2010 Alex Awards. The awards, sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust, were announced at the 2010 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston, January 15-19, and will appear with full annotations in the March 1 issue of Booklist magazine. The 2010 Alex Award winners are:

* The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, published by William Morrow

* The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff, published by Viking Penguin

* Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr., published by Viking Penguin

* The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, published by Sarah Crichton Books

* The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir by Diana Welch and Liz Welch with Amanda Welch and Dan Welch, published by Harmony Books

"ProQuest has acquired the London School of Economics' International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). Established in 1951, IBSS is the foremost Abstracting and Indexing database for social science and interdisciplinary research, currently holding more than 2.5 million bibliographic references to journal articles as well as to books, reviews and chapters. IBSS also expands by more than 120,000 new additions each year"

"The LOUISiana Digital Library is an online library of over 84,000 digital materials about Louisiana's history, culture, places, and people. Its purpose is to make unique historical treasures from Louisiana's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories in the state electronically accessible to Louisiana residents and to students, researchers, and the general public in other states and countries. The LOUISiana Digital Library contains photographs, maps, manuscript materials, books, oral histories, and more that document Louisiana's history and culture. We hope that you find the items in the Digital Library as diverse and interesting as the people and places in Louisiana"

Sunday, January 17, 2010

"SAGE Publications, is now offering authors of papers published on SAGE Journals Online, the option to make their primary research articles freely available on publication. The SAGE Open publishing option has been launched primarily to ensure that authors can comply with new stringent funding body requirements, (for example those now in place from the Wellcome Trust), and ensures that relevant journals are compliant with NIH/Wellcome Trust and other grant funder requirements. The following list of journals participate in SAGE Open:

Adaptive BehaviourAngiologyAsian Cardiovascular and Thoracic AnnalsAutismBritish Journal of Visual ImpairmentChild Language Teaching and TherapyChronic IllnessChronic Respiratory DiseaseClinical and Applied Thrombosis/HemostasisClinical Child Psychology and PsychiatryClinical PediatricsClinical RehabilitationClinical TrialsConcurrent EngineeringCulture & PsychologyDementiaDiabetes and Vascular Disease ResearchEmotion ReviewGlobal Health PromotionGroup Processes & Intergroup RelationsHealth: An Interdisciplinary JournalHealth Education JournalHealth Informatics JournalHigh Performance PolymersHistory of PsychiatryHistory of the Human SciencesHuman & Experimental ToxicologyIndoor and Built EnvironmentInnate ImmunityIntegrative Cancer TherapiesInternational Journal of Behavioral DevelopmentInternational Journal of Damage MechanicsInternational Journal of High Performance Computing ApplicationsInternational Journal of Robotics ResearchInternational Journal of Social PsychiatryJournal of Bioactive and Compatible PolymersJournal of Biological RhythmsJournal of Biomaterials ApplicationsJournal of Biomolecular ScreeningJournal of Building PhysicsJournal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and TherapeuticsJournal of Cellular PlasticsJournal of Child Health CareJournal of Composite MaterialsJournal of Elastomers and PolymersJournal of Fire ScienceJournal of Hand Surgery (European Volume)Journal of Health PsychologyJournal of Industrial TextilesJournal of Infection PreventionJournal of Information ScienceJournal of Intellectual DisabilitiesJournal of Intelligent Materials Systems and StructuresJournal of Librarianship and Information ScienceJournal of Oncology Pharmacy PracticeJournal of Pharmacy PracticeJournal of Plastic Film and SheetingJournal of PsychopharmacologyJournal of Reinforced Plastics and CompositesJournal of Research in NursingJournal of Sandwich Structures and MaterialsJournal of Social and Personal RelationshipsJournal of Thermoplastic Composite MaterialsJournal of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone SystemJournal of Vibration and ControlLupusMathematics and Mechanics of SolidsMultiple SclerosisNursing EthicsThe NeuroscientistPalliative MedicinePerfusionPerspectives in Public HealthRationality and SocietyScandinavian Journal of Public HealthSchool Psychology InternationalSeminars in Cardiothoracic and Vascular AnesthesiaSocial Science InformationSocial Studies of ScienceStatistical Methods in Medical ResearchStructural Health MonitoringSurgical InnovationTextile Research JournalTheory & PsychologyThe British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular DiseaseTranscultural PsychiatryToxicologic PathologyToxicology & Industrial HealthTraumaVascular Medicine

"The announcement this week that The Beaver will change its name to Canada's History beginning with its next issue has received coverage from media around the world. Overseas sources ranging from Australia's The Daily Telegraph to U.K. technology website The Register have been fascinated by the unfortunate double entendre and resulting spam filter snafus that led to the change"

Scholars Portal is a service of the Ontario Council of University Libraries. OCUL is a consortium of 21 academic libraries in the province of Ontario and acts under the authority of the Council of Ontario Universities. OCUL has licensed millions of articles, electronic books, numeric and geospatial data files for the use of researchers and students of its member libraries. These resources are made available through various Scholars Portal services. Access to Scholars Portal is limited to "Authorized Users" of the 21 universities in Ontario. Authorized Users are defined as educators, students and other staff members who currently are affiliated with an Ontario university

A $2.38 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Indiana University will be used to develop software created specifically for the management of print and electronic collections for academic and research libraries around the world.

"The impact of the devastating earthquake in Haiti has awakened an enormous outpouring of sympathy and support for families and friends of the Haitian community worldwide. The American Library Association, which is holding its Midwinter Meeting through Jan. 20 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in Boston, recognizes the urgent need to send aid to the victims of this tragic event. It has joined the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) in asking for support for relief efforts now underway in Haiti"

The American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) Board of Directors voted at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston on Saturday, January 16, 2009, to officially adopt for the profession the title school librarian

Saturday, January 16, 2010

"MARCEDIT-L, a Listserv(R)-hosted list, has recently been made available for those wishing to ask (or answer) questions about MarcEdit. Also, if you are organizing a MarcEdit workshop, you may use the list to promulgate information (including local arrangements)"

"The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has announced the availability of Research Data: Unseen Opportunities. The purpose of the toolkit is to enable research library directors to raise awareness of the issues of data management with administrators and researchers on campus. The purpose of the toolkit is to enable research library directors to raise awareness of the issues of data management with administrators and researchers on campus"

MUSE News is a print newsletter published seasonally by Project MUSE. MUSE News contains updates on new features and functionalities, new titles, tips for using MUSE effectively, and items of interest about MUSE journals and publishers. The online version of MUSE News is provided in Portable Document Format (PDF). Winter 2009 Vol. 10, No. 2 now available

Maney Publishing has announced the launch of a new open access (OA) business model, MORE OpenChoice. Twenty-four materials science and engineering journals and fifteen health science titles are initially included in MORE OpenChoice, with the intention to expand this to humanities journals in the future

Residents living in and around the Woodgrange Estate, in Southend, can now use the services of a mobile library. Aimed at encouraging parents to share books with the under 5s, the library will call every three weeks on Wednesdays from 10.45-11.15am at the Centre Place Family Centre, Prospect Close. Estuary Housing Association staff who work in the centre's nursery are involved in a language development scheme for children called Every Child a Talker (ECaT). By sharing books and rhymes, parents can help their children develop good language and listening skills, and picture books can be introduced at very early age to encourage a life-long love of literature. Children and Bookstart manager, Anne Bonham said: "A 'Bookstart' is the best start any child can have and any parent can give it. "A few minutes a day sharing a book helps children develop their language, concentration and skills that will make learning easy. "Children who have been introduced to books do better when they get to school - it works because it's fun."

Library + Information Gazette, the fortnightly magazine for the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is now available online to everyone. Latest issue: 14 January 2010 - 27 January 2010

"OCLC and Mosio are working together to enable seamless integration of Mosio's Text a Librarian text messaging reference software with OCLC's QuestionPoint reference management service to provide a comprehensive virtual reference solution for libraries"

"IREX Technologies has unveiled the DR800S, the company's newest addition to its innovative line of eReaders. It will be available January 18 2010 in stores (amongst others Mediamarkt, FNAC and Selexyz) throughout Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK and online in the IREX Web shop"

The Koha Newsletter is an official publication of the Koha Open Source Community. Articles are contributed by both users and developers of the Koha Open Source ILS and edited by Nicole C. Engard. Koha Documentation Manager/Director of Open Source Education, ByWater Solutions.

CARL E-Lert # 358, January 15, 2010, is now available from Canadian Association of Research Libraries. Some of this week's items: ALA, ACRL Say All Federal Agencies Should Follow Mandatory Public Access Policies; Report Finds Common Ground in Efforts to Balance Public Access, Scholarly Publishing; ARL Partners in Grant to Study Value of Academic Libraries; Programming skills could transform librarians' roles

"Alex gives you easy access to more than a million books from eBook vendors today to read online or download to build your personal offline library. Alex expands, enriches and personalizes your reading experience anywhere you go. Alex is giving birth to a new industry of multimedia publishing and delivering new opportunities to authors by enabling readers to use their Alex eReader to explore the Web through hyperlinks embedded in online books"

"DeepDyve and CiteULike have announced that they are collaborating to deliver a superior way to easily and affordably share and read scholarly information on the Internet. CiteULike's web-based service is widely used in academic and professional circles as a way to store, organize and share scholarly papers. Through its partnership with DeepDyve, CiteULike now offers its users a simple way to rent and read the journal articles they discover for as little as $0.99"

Friday, January 15, 2010

"The KBART Phase I Recommended Practice, will be published formally on January 18, 2010. The KBART working group has spent two years creating best practice guidelines and supporting information to help publishers, libraries and knowledge base developers exchange e-content holdings information more effectively - this should lead to reduced user frustration, reduced administrative burden for libraries, and more traffic to publisher websites"

Illuminea is a new quarterly newsletter published by Oxford University Press for academic librarians and information professionals. This publication will keep readers up-to-date with the latest developments at OUP and across the publishing world. The first edition, published January 2010, can be downloaded in PDF format

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Where?. "This brainteaser asks where particular places or things can be found. But beware! You may find some of the questions are not as straightforward as you might think" Answers here.

1. Where is Ayers Rock or Uluru?2. Where are the Urals?3. Where is Guantanamo Bay?4. Where is the Auteuil viaduct?5. Where would you find a Plimsoll line?6. Where would you find Gozo and Comino?7. Where would you find Virginia Plain?8. Where is the metatarsus?9. Where is the Mare Orientale?10. Where are the Islets (or Islands) of Langerhans?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

"SirsiDynix has announced the most comprehensive Apple iPhone® application for library users is near release, pending Apple's standard review. The free application locates nearby libraries and allows users to search library catalogs for available materials"